The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1887-03-23
LIVES LOST BY FIRE.
Flames Speedily Destroy the Richmond
Hotel and Other Buildings
mt Buffalo.
Thirty Persons Believed to Have Been
Burned to Death and Many
Badly Injured.
Buffalo special


Another calamity has visited Buffalo.
The splendid new Richmond Hotel, at the
corner of Main aud Eagle streets, was to-
tally destroyed by fire early Friday morning,
together with st. James Hall and other adj
jacent property. The most distressful part
of the disaster is the loss of several human
lives. At this writing it is impossible to
say just how many persons are killed and
injured, but the number is large. The rap
idity of the fire, cutting off all means of
escape, led some persons TO leap for life
from the windows. Others got down the
fire-escapes or on Hayes ladders raised
by the fire department. The shrieks
and cries of tie poor people in the
upper stories of the burning structure were
heartrending. One man, mad with terror,
leaped from a third story window, and was
picked up from the stone sidewalk on Main
street a mangled and bleeding corpse.
Several who succeeded in making their
escape were badly injured and burned,
and some of these will probably die.
Others, more fortunate, escaped with
slight injuries. Many of the wounded
were taken to Carney's saloon, and after
ward to hospitals. Robert Stafford, ST.,
proprietor of the hotel, with his wife, occu-
pied rooms on the second floor, and had a
narrow escape. Terror overcame every
safety were in many cases prostrated by
their awful experiences. There were 125
persons in the hotel, seventy of whom were
transient guests, eight boarders and the
remainder por,ers, bell boys, the families
OF the proprietors, and clerks. Twenty
two OF these were rescued from the win
dows by the fremen, twenty-five are at the
hospitals, and large number made their
escape by other means. There is no doubt
that at least thirty lives were sacrificed.
The spread of the flames is said TO have
been frightful in their rapidity. The ele-
vator shaft served as a tiue for the flames,
and they rushed up to the top floor in q
very few moments. AS the guests were
reused and saw the interior exits cut off
they turned to the windows. They could
be seen in their night clothes, standing out
clear and vivid before the lurid background
of the flames. Their screams were
horrible to hear, and they could be
heard for blocks. The flames spread
10 the southeast side of the hotel
first. The fremen did noble work and
confined the fire TO the narrow limits Of
the three buildings named. Their work of
rescue had many exciting incidents.
Perhaps the most thrilling escape Of any
was that of Pres Whitaker, step-son of
Proprietor Stafford. lie roomed in the
the window and looked down for few
seconds. Then he deliberately dressed
himself and, emerging from the window,
stood on the stone Gaping above the win
dow beneath. From this Gaping lie step
ped to the next one along the front of the
building, and proceeded in this manner 10
the Hayes truck ladder at the other ex-
tremity of the front. The nerve and COOL
ness displayed were remarkable.
Five girls who roomed on the fifth floor
made a rope out Of the bedclothes and hung
it out of the window, but none OF them
seemed to have the courage to start. At
last one of the five took hold and swung
down TO n window ledge, from which she
was rescued. Three others came down in
the same manner, and then the fifth girl
started down. She had gone but a little
distance when the rope parted, and down
she went four stories. Strange to say, she
was not killed. Her legs were terribly cut
and bruised, her back badly injured, and
her face and arms were in a frightful con-
dition from burns. She lay moaning upon
a lounge at the Spencer House, begging to
be sent home. Her name is said to be Mary
Cornell.